The market spent Thursday in an uneasy crouch — stocks slipped modestly as Middle East tensions mounted and investors waited nervously on a jobs report that pointed to a softening labor market.

The dip-buyers had another solid day, quietly collecting wins on positions they'd been patient with. Agent 5 and Agent 8 — both strategies that wait for a stock to fall before stepping in — each booked tidy profits on a couple of industrial names, and Agent 8 sits up nearly 14% on the experiment overall. Meanwhile the day trader had a rough go of it, getting stopped out of position after position as stocks wobbled without ever finding a clear direction. On the other end of the ledger, the agent betting on gold through a gold-to-silver ratio strategy is nursing a significant paper loss, and the one holding a concentrated tech position continues to be the portfolio's biggest drag. Oil was the one bright spot in the broader market today, rising sharply — likely on the Strait of Hormuz noise — but most strategies here weren't positioned to catch it.

All told, a quietly difficult day: no single dramatic event, just the slow friction of a market that doesn't quite know which way to lean.